


Northern Star

by faege



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-09
Updated: 2010-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faege/pseuds/faege
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many things Sam is not and one thing that he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Northern Star

There are many things Sam is not.

He’s not a balled-up boy anymore, doesn’t curl up to fit along your side, baby tummy still pressing against yours, and toe at your knees because that’s as far as he can reach. He doesn’t knock at you with his elbows and scuff at the hair in his eyes, doesn’t come home with impossible grass stains and scabs on his shins. He isn’t reprimanded for blowing bubbles in his milk because he doesn’t have that space between his front teeth where he always tried to slide a straw. He doesn’t ask for Lucky Charms, he doesn’t offer you the rest of his popsicle, and doesn’t make faces at the carrots you dish on his plate.

He’s not a colt-cut teenager anymore, doesn’t cry at night because his bones ache or challenge you to races after school. He doesn’t grip the wheel of the Impala with white knuckles or fuss over his shirt before a dance. He doesn’t wear your hand-me-downs, the shirts that were always too tight in the shoulders and the pants that never covered his shoes. He doesn’t blush when he walks by the cheerleaders or shout to shake the rafters when he has to quit his job at the store because you’re moving again. He doesn’t display his report cards on the counter for Dad to see and he doesn’t call you names with the clumsiness of someone who’s not used to forming four-letter words. He doesn’t eat everything in sight or laugh hysterically at the way you can perfectly imitate the drawl of the sheriff who last pulled you over.

He’s not even the shaped-strong man you met after midnight in Palo Alto, the whip-snap strength cloaked beneath the heart he wears on his sleeve. He doesn’t show frustration with a jet of breath or roll his eyes. He doesn’t pine for fruit after a week of greasy diners or flash dimples at the waitress who delivers his sandwich with a smile. He doesn’t break into song because the windows are down and you asked him to, or eat his take-out with chopsticks because Jess showed him how. He doesn’t raise his eyebrows when you ask him to drive, he doesn’t hesitate when you pop the Impala’s hood, and he doesn’t linger over the silver bullets he loads into his gun.

He’s heroic, you decide, this stretched-wide monster of a man who towers above you and seems to shelter the world when he raises his arms. He chases you down like prey and then covers you with his back to the threat, lion-hearted, his teeth bare or covered in blood, his voice an animal growl. He closes in slow and strikes fast, eyes hard because of his hardships, shoulders stiff against the load he bears. He takes your burdens and carries them and the burdens of those you’ve passed along the way. He cradles you, your hands, your head, and cleans your bruises, your cuts when you have them. He argues with you, that straight-edge logic slicing through your protests, backed by the force of his zeal. He pirouettes with the shadows that cling to him, dark moths to a dark flame, and he is the prism that finds the light and breaks the black with his body. He struggles with the oil-slick on his soul and finds purchase in the grip he has on your acceptance, enough to keep him climbing from the pit inside just so he can choose to jump in another one, this time in an abandoned cemetery not far from where he was a soft-cheeked toddler who loved you more than anything.

One thing about Sam has never changed.


End file.
